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Thank you again to everyone who counted pollinators in the seventh National Wild Pollinator Count! We’ve reached more locations in Australia this count than before. It’s wonderful to see how many people love counting pollinators. We received many comments from … Continue reading →

The spring 2017 Wild Pollinator Count starts this Sunday 12 November and runs until the following Sunday 19 November. You can count pollinators anywhere in Australia, on any warm sunny during that week! Find more details on how to count here and some answers to common questions here.

Once you’ve finished a count (you can do more than one!), please submit your observations via our online form. The form will stay open for submissions until 26 November, but we can’t accept any counts done after November 19. Results will be posted on the blog in early December.

And don’t forget you can share your photos and counting tips with us on social media using the official hashtag #ozpollinators.

The pattern of seasons this year has been unpredictable, to say the least. It was the hottest winter on record for Australia, so you may have seen some pollinators out and about during the winter months, even in cooler temperate regions. Bees are lot less tolerant of cold than flies, so it’s always interesting to note if you see any native bees flying on winter days. Continue reading →

We’re keen to improve the Wild Pollinator Count by better understanding participants’ experiences and preferences. Please let us know your thoughts by completing our short online survey. It should take less than five minutes to complete. The survey will remain … Continue reading →

Many thanks to Manuel Lequerica for analysing the data and writing our results post! Once more, the Wild Pollinator count was a big success thanks to all the participants who shared their observations with us. For the autumn 2017 count, … Continue reading →

We hope you’ve had fun counting pollinators this week. The cold snap across the south-east early in the week wasn’t ideal weather for pollinator spotting! But luckily, it warmed up again quickly, with ideal pollinator sampling conditions across most of the country for the rest of the week. We even got our first ever observation from the Northern Territory, despite the cyclonic weather they are battling up there!

The Autumn 2017 National Wild Pollinator Count ends Sunday April 16th. So if you haven’t done a count yet, there’s still time! You can conduct a 10 minute observation of any flowering plant, anywhere in Australia, at any time until Sunday evening.

The submission form will remain open until April 23rd to give you time to enter your observation data online. But remember, we can’t accept any observations that were conducted after the 16th.

A results summary of this autumn count will be posted here on the blog at the end of April.

If you missed out on counting this time, don’t worry…the spring 2017 count will run from November 12-19.

You can count pollinators anywhere in Australia at any time between the morning of Sunday April 9 and the evening of Sunday April 16. All you need is 10 minutes to watch a flowering plant in your backyard or neighbourhood. The submission form will remain open for a few days after the count period, if you find it easier to count first and submit your data later.

Our last autumn count in April 2016 collected over 200 observations from 86 localities across the eastern and southern states. But in spring 2016, we extended our records to Western Australia too. Hopefully we will get some observations from the Northern Territory this year!

Autumn is the season for winding down and preparing for the winter hibernation. And it’s an important season for pollinators. Many insect pollinator species are provisioning their last nest cells or laying their last eggs before winter. So plants that flower in autumn can be important resources for the next generation of pollinators we will see in spring.

If you’re not sure what is flowering in your local area, start scouting for potential flowers to observe now. With lots of rain in some parts of the country over summer and early autumn, you may be surprised at what plants are enjoying a renewed burst of colour!

If you can’t contribute this time round, the national count is on again in the second full week (Sunday to Sunday) in November and April every year.